Giants 101 provides 24/7 obsessive sports coverage of the New York Giants as a part of Sports Media 101. For news,
op/ed, game reviews, team updates and even rumors you will find all of it on Giants 101. Have an opinion - join
the discussion and drop a comment. If it's about the Giants, it's on Giants 101.

"We haven’t really talked about that. That’s always an option at some point in time, but he’s proven to be worth the amount of salary-cap space that’s been allocated to him," co-owner John Mara said on Monday.

Of course, fans across the country will scream "get it done!" without thinking ahead. And as Mara mentioned on Monday, while restructuring Manning's deal would solve short-term problems, it would then create long-term problems that would impact the team negatively in future free agency periods.

"That’s something you could always do at some point to create more room. But again, the more room you create in current years, you have to pay that back at some point in time, and you don’t want to put yourself in a position where you are in salary-cap jail and you’re forced to cut an inordinate number of players. That’s something that may be discussed at some point in the future, but that’s not on our radar right now," Mara added.

Dollars to donuts 50% of people reading the headline of this article will yell from their soapbox, criticizing the Giants for not making the extra room without ever reading or understanding why it won't (and shouldn't) happen. But, regrettably, this is the Madden age we live in.

Whatever the case, the option is always there should the Giants need it, and at some point in the near future they're going to need to extend his contract beyond 2015 anyway.

I see Mara’s point, but like the writer said, Eli is due for an inevitable extension. Something tells me Eli would be the first guy in the room to talk extension or re-structure to keep one of his favorite targets. Cap space isn’t the issue here, it’s getting Cruz at the price the team thinks is fair. I’m not expecting them to waver on that. This will probably come down to the wire. Or maybe you could say we are already there.

I don’t think Condon’s issues with the Patriots are reason enough to assume they won’t make a deal if they want him. If they were willing to work with him to get Lloyd last year, they’d certainly dirty their hands on his for Cruz.

I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s no reason to rework Eli’s contract unless it becomes necessary. It’s always there to use, but IF you can get what you want done without touching it, eating that 20M cap hit allows you to free up a LOT more cap room next year and into the future with Eli’s contract. You’ve got to eat it some time, and if you can make all the moves you want with it in the books at $20M, then awesome.

If the Giants can somehow get Cruz signed while only using Diehl’s contract to free up space, then the cap room for Nicks is just an Eli restructure away. If they can wait until next year to do that, our cap situation is even better.

Agree with you on the Pats and Condon. You can hate an agent all day; you’re signing the player. If they want him, can afford to lose the pick, and have the dough, they’ll jump. Going to NE with the chance to play with Brady could be irresistible to Cruz if the $$ are much better than what NY has offered (by the way, does anyone know what the Substantial offer supposedly was?) If Minnesota offered big $$ Cruz should really hesitate as Ponder is no Eli. Not sure how alluring St Louis would be with Bradford.